Andrew Horstman shows a nice trout he caught recently in the Amelia River.

As the saying goes, “The heat is on.” With heat comes warmer water temperatures, leaving Northeast Florida with awesome fishing.

The mullet have started to infiltrate our backwaters, along with pogies and greenies at the jetties. Sardines and cigar minnows have arrived at the offshore reefs. This is all good for fishing in our area. With bait come predators.

Cobia are one of my favorite species to target, and the reports show catches improving weekly at our inshore reefs. This weekend I would expect them to begin showing up along our buoy line, along the beaches around the bait pods and in the by-catch of the shrimp boats.

Live pogies, eels, pinfish and greenies are great choices if you would like to have live bait available to target cobia. Whole large squid works well if you are looking for a dead bait to catch a cobia. There are many artificial means to catch a cobia. Rapala magnums, Mirrorlure or a jig with an artificial eel or curly tail are all deadly choices when choosing artificial bait.

Cobia, especially a large one, are powerful. Handle these fish with care and release the ones that are too short as soon as possible. Regulations state a cobia must be at least 33 inches to the fork to keep.

Chris Murphy displays a recent gator trout catch.

Trout fishing remains excellent floating a live shrimp or a mud minnow on the bottom. Fishing the high tide over the oyster bars and the low tide around structures such as docks, the edges of oyster bars should produce fish for you.

Topwater plug fishing has been improving with the warmer water temperatures. You never know what is going to boil on a topwater plug this time of year. Trout, reds, ladyfish, jack crevalle and bluefish will all strike a topwater plug this time of year.

Offshore bottom fishing remains consistent on the inshore reefs with grouper, snapper, sea bass and a few flounder being caught this week. Small kingfish, barracuda and bonita have arrived along with the live bait at the inshore reefs 10 to 15 miles out for the anglers who would like to troll this weekend. Artificials or live bait should do the trick.

I want to wish good luck to the big-game anglers who are fishing the Amelia Island Bluewater Shoot Out today. Dolphin, wahoo and tuna should be in line to be weighed in today. Ballyhoo rigged with a skirt, trolled around 4 to 6 knots will usually leave you with some hot rod-bending action.

The surf has been fair to slow this week. There has been plenty of action from bonnethead sharks and blues. The point on Amelia Island State Park has been producing whiting along with a few short, chubby flounder.

There have been a few flounder show up at the George Crady Bridge State Fishing Pier this week, also. Fishing along the beach and around the smaller finger jetties at Fort Clinch also has been good this week, with a few flounder also being caught.

Enjoy the gorgeous weather predicted for this weekend.

Until next time … Capt. Jim.